It was nearly seven-thirty, and the late-March dusk had turned into night. The lot’s stark lights had come on, creating a visual atmosphere that was neither darkness nor daylight—perhaps what daylight might be like on a planet whose sun was a chilly blue and all the colors were faded and cold.
Kim had joined Gurney in the front seat of the Outback to discuss their “performance” and its potential impact on its presumed audience. Kim was the first to raise a practical question. “Do you think the Shepherd will swallow the bait?”
“Bottom line, yes. He may be suspicious. He’s probably the kind of person who’s suspicious of everything. But he’ll have to do something. And to do something, he’ll have to show up. In the scenario we laid out, the risk of doing nothing would be bigger than the risk of taking action. He’ll understand that. He’s a very logical guy.”
“So you think we did okay?”
“You did more than okay. You seemed very much yourself. Now, listen to me: Spend tonight in this hotel. Don’t open your door for anyone. Not under any circumstances. If anyone tries to persuade you to open the door, you get security on the phone immediately. Okay? Call me in the morning.”
“Are we ever going to be safe?”
Gurney smiled. “I think so. I’m hoping we’ll all be perfectly safe after tomorrow night.”
Kim was biting her lower lip. “What are you going to do?”
Gurney leaned back, gazing out at the parking lot’s bilious lighting. “My plan is to let the Good Shepherd step forward and hang himself. But that’s tomorrow night. Tonight the plan is to go home, go to bed, and get the sleep I haven’t gotten for two days.”
Kim nodded. “Okay.” She paused. “Well, I’d better get myself a room.” She picked up her shoulder bag, got out of the car, and went into the hotel.
After watching Kim disappear into the hotel lobby, Gurney got out of his car, walked around to the rear, lay down on his back, and reached underneath. Without much trouble, he managed to remove the GPS tracker from the bumper support. Back in his seat, he opened the device with a small screwdriver and disconnected its battery.
From now until the final confrontation, he wanted to keep his location to himself.
Chapter 45
The Devil’s Disciple
The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away.
That night Gurney got seven uninterrupted hours of desperately needed sleep. The next morning, however, he awoke with a feeling of dread—a nameless fear that was only partly relieved by showering, dressing, and strapping on his Beretta.
At 8:00 A.M. he was gazing out the kitchen window, the sun a cool white disk in the morning haze. He was halfway through his first cup of coffee, waiting for it to have a positive effect. Madeleine was sitting at the breakfast table with her oatmeal, toast, and War and Peace.
“Were you up reading that all night?” he asked.
She blinked at the interruption, visibly confused and annoyed. “What?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. Sorry.” It had been an ill-advised attempt at humor, hardly humor at all, based on his recollection that she’d been at the same table with the same book the previous evening when he’d come home from Syracuse and gone almost immediately to bed, giving her only the blandest summary of the drama he and Kim had acted out.
He finished his coffee and went to the pot for a second cup. As he was pouring it, Madeleine closed her book and slid it a few inches toward the center of the table.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking so much of that,” she said.
“You’re probably right.” He filled his cup anyway but, in a peculiar concession to her concern, added only one sweetener packet to it instead of his usual two.
She continued to watch him. He had the impression that the worry in her expression took in larger issues than his caffeine consumption.
After he switched off the coffeemaker and went back to the window, she asked quietly, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
The question had a strange effect on him. It seemed so all-encompassing. Yet so simple.
“I don’t think so.” To his own ears, his answer sounded trite, inadequate.
“Well,” she said, “let me know if you think of anything.”
Her gentle tone made him feel even more inadequate. He tried to brighten his mood by changing the subject. “So what’s on your agenda today?”
“The clinic, naturally. And I may not be home for dinner. I may go over to Betty’s after work.” She paused. “Is that all right?”
It was a question she often asked in a variety of contexts. It could be about going somewhere, or planting something in one of the flower beds, or a recipe decision. He always found it inexplicably irritating, and he invariably answered it the same way. “Of course it’s all right.” The exchange was always, as it was now, followed by a silence.
Madeleine reached for War and Peace and reopened it.
He took his coffee into the den, sat at the desk, and contemplated the uncertainties of the situation he’d be walking into that night, alone and largely unprepared, in Max Clinter’s cabin.
Then a new thought—a new worry—came out of nowhere. He left his coffee in the den and went out to Madeleine’s car.
Twenty minutes later he came back in, satisfied that his sudden fear was groundless and that her car was free of any unwanted electronic devices.
“What was that little trip all about?” she asked, peering at him over the top of her book as he passed through the kitchen on his way back to the den.
He decided he had no better option than to tell the truth. He told her what he’d been looking for and why—describing the discoveries he’d made on Kim’s car as well as his own.
“Who do you think is responsible?” Her tone was even, but there was a tightness at the corners of her eyes.
“I’m not sure.” The answer was technically true, but evasive.
“That Meese character?” she suggested, almost hopefully.
“Possibly.”
“Or possibly the person who set fire to our barn? And booby-trapped Kim’s stairs?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly the Good Shepherd himself?”
“Possibly.”
She took a long, slow breath. “Does that mean he’s been following you?”
“Not necessarily. Certainly not closely. I would have noticed. He may just want to know where I am.”
“Why would he want to know that?”
“Risk management. Feeling of control. Natural desire to know where your enemy is at all times.”
She stared at him, her mouth compressed into a straight line. It was plain that she could see another, more violent use for the information.
He was about to allay some of her fear by explaining that he’d already disconnected the tracker he’d found on his Outback, but he realized that would lead to the troublesome question of why he hadn’t also disconnected the one on the Miata.
The answer, in reality, was simple. The Shepherd might believe that the battery version had run out of power, but it would strain credibility to have the hardwired version fail simultaneously. Gurney was reluctant to tell Madeleine this, however, because he knew how upset she’d be at the Shepherd’s ability to track Kim for even one more day. There was a limit to how many conflicts he could deal with at once, and some triage was essential.
“So, Dad, are you going to tell us how it went?”
At the sound of Kyle’s voice, Gurney turned to see his son entering the kitchen barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair wet from the shower.
“Pretty much like I said last night.”
“Last night you didn’t really say much at all.”
“I guess I just wanted to get to bed. I was about to collapse. But it went smoothly enough. No glitches. I think the story we planted was believable.”
“What now?”
There were limits to what Gurney wanted to say in front of Madeleine. The whole enterprise could easily end up sounding
way too risky. He answered as matter-of-factly as he could. “Basically, I get into position and wait for him to walk into the trap.”
Kyle looked skeptical. “Just like that?”
Gurney shrugged. Madeleine had stopped reading and was watching him.
Kyle persisted. “What were the magic words?”
“Pardon?”
“What did you guys actually say in your … your improvised scene … that’s going to make this guy show up?”
“We created the impression that there might be a way he could get rid of me. It’s hard to remember the precise—” His cell phone rang.
He looked at the ID screen and recognized Kim’s number. He was grateful for the interruption. The gratitude lasted about three seconds.
She sounded like she was hyperventilating.
“Kim? What’s the matter?”
“God … God …”
“Kim?”
“Yes.”
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Robby. He’s dead.”
“What?”
“He’s dead.”
“Robby Meese is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“What?”
“Can you tell me where he is?”
“He’s in my bed.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did he end up in your bed?”
“I don’t know! He’s just there! What should I do?”
“Are you in the apartment?”
“Yes. Can you come here?”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened. I came here from the hotel this morning to get some more of my things. I went into the bedroom. I …”
“Kim?”
“Yes?”
“You went into the bedroom …”
“He’s in there now. On my bed.”
“How do you know he’s dead?”
“He was lying on his face. I tried to roll him over, wake him up. There’s the … the handle of something … sticking out of his chest.”
Gurney’s mind was racing, the puzzle pieces caught up in a whirlwind.
“Dave?”
“Yes, Kim?”
“Could you please come?”
“Listen to me, Kim. What you have to do right now is call 911.”
“Can you come?”
“Kim, my being there won’t help. You have to call 911. You have to do it right now. That’s the most important thing. Do you understand?”
“Yes. But I wish you were here. Please.”
“I know. But I’m going to hang up now, so you can make that 911 call. After you describe the situation to the dispatcher, call me back. You understand?”
“Yes.”
When Gurney broke the connection, Kyle and Madeleine were staring at him. Five minutes later, as he was still recounting the call to them in as much detail as he could, Kim called back.
“The dispatcher said the police are on their way.” Her voice sounded more controlled.
“Are you okay?”
“I guess. I don’t know. There’s a suicide note.”
“Say that again.”
“A suicide note. From Robby. On my computer.”
“You checked your computer?”
“I just saw it. It’s right here on the screen. In front of me. It was turned on.”
“You’re sure it’s a suicide note?”
“Of course I’m sure. What else could it be?”
“What does it say?”
“It’s awful.”
“What does it say?”
“I don’t want to read it out loud. I can’t.” She sounded like she was taking deep breaths.
“Please, Kim, try to read it to me. It’s important.”
“Do I really have to read it? It’s really awful.”
“Try. Please.”
“Okay. I’ll try. Okay.” She read in a trembling voice, “ ‘The human race disgusts me. You disgust me. You and Gurney together disgust me. Life is disgusting. I hope someday you see the truth and it kills you. This is the last will of Robert Montague.’ That’s it. That’s all it says. When the police come, what should I tell them?”
“Just answer their questions.”
“Should I tell them about last night?”
“Answer their questions concisely and truthfully.” He paused, searching for the right words. “I wouldn’t volunteer a lot of stuff that would just muddy the picture.”
“Is it all right to say you were here?”
“Yes. They’ll want to know if you were in the apartment, when you came, when you left, and whether anyone was there with you. You can tell them we were there, that we were discussing your RAM project. I don’t think it would be helpful to distract them with extraneous details about Max Clinter or his house. The thing is, you need to tell the truth, you can’t lie—but you’re not required to spew out unasked-for details. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so. Should I tell them I spent last night at a hotel?”
“Definitely. They’ll want to know where you were, and you need to be truthful. If I were you, and my apartment had been entered mysteriously on a number of occasions, and the local police hadn’t responded adequately, I wouldn’t want to be sleeping there. I’d feel safer in a hotel, or in Walnut Crossing, or in a friend’s apartment in Manhattan. By the way, did you leave the hotel at all during the night?”
“No, of course not. But suppose—” There was a loud knocking sound in the background. “The police are here. I’d better go. Call you later.”
After the call ended, Gurney stood where he was, in the middle of the room, trying to get a firm hold on the facts, the implications, the immediate imperatives. He felt like a man juggling half a dozen oranges who’d just been tossed a watermelon.
A watermelon loaded with nitroglycerin.
Chapter 46
No Other Way
“Suicide?” said Kyle.
“I doubt it,” said Gurney. “He wasn’t the type. And even if he was, homicide would still make more sense.”
“You think the Syracuse cops are good enough to figure out what really happened?”
“Maybe with a little help.” He spent a few seconds weighing his options, then took out his phone and entered Hardwick’s number.
The call was picked up on the first ring. “Seren-fucking-dipity!” said the rough voice.
“Beg pardon?”
“I was in the act of reaching for the phone to call you, and here you are. Don’t tell me that ain’t fucking-dipity.”
“Whatever you say, Jack. The reason I’m calling is that I know something that could be of value to BCI, and you may be the only BCI person willing to talk to me.”
“Yeah, well, after I give you a certain piece of news, you may not give a fuck about—”
“Listen to me. Robby Meese is dead.”
“Dead? Dead, meaning whacked?”
“I’d say so, although it’s been set up as a suicide.”
“BCI is not yet aware of this corpse?”
“The Syracuse city police know about it. So you guys will find out soon enough. But that’s not the issue. Whoever ends up being responsible for the forensics, I want to make sure they take a close look at the computer keyboard that was used to type the purported suicide note. The smudges on the keys are likely to be very similar to those found on Ruth Blum’s computer.”
Hardwick paused as though he were trying to understand this. “Where is this corpse?”
“In Kim Corazon’s apartment.”
A longer pause. “The latex-glove smudges on Blum’s keyboard were caused by someone trying to type something in a way that would preserve her fingerprints on the keys, to make it look like she typed it. Right?”
“Right.”
“How does that work here? The preserved fingerprints on Corazon’s keyboard would be hers, not Meese’s. How would that make it look like
he typed the note?”
“The killer could have asked Meese to type something else—an e-mail, who knows what—before he killed him. Then, with Meese’s prints on the keys, the killer put on gloves and typed the suicide note.”
“So what do you want me to do with this big insight?”
“When you see the CJIS homicide report on Meese, which with any luck will mention the computer note, it might suddenly occur to you—because of the Kim Corazon connection to Ruth Blum—that the computer keyboard imprints ought to be compared. You might want to mention it to Bullard over in Auburn. And to a Detective James Schiff in Syracuse.”
“You don’t want to do this yourself?”
“My name is not magic at the moment. Any suggestion from me will end up at the bottom of the pile, if it makes it into the pile at all.”
Hardwick exploded in a hacking cough. Or it might have been a laugh. “Man, you don’t know how fucking true that is, which is why I was about to call you. The arson unit has decided to bring you in for questioning. As a suspect.”
“When?”
“Most likely tomorrow morning. Conceivably as early as this afternoon. Thought I’d mention it, in case you’d prefer not to be home.”
“Okay, Jack. Thank you. I’ll sign off now. Got a few things I need to do.”
“Watch your ass, kemosabe. Posse’s gettin’ ugly.”
When Gurney ended the call, he was standing in the middle of the long room. Madeleine and Kyle were sitting at the table. Kyle was gazing at him in frank amazement. “That’s incredible—that thing with the gloves on the keyboard? Wow. How’d you figure that out?”
“I’m only guessing. I may not have figured anything out. But another problem’s heating up. The arson-unit idiots are being pressured by the fed idiots to question me about the barn.”
Kyle looked incensed. “Isn’t that what that jerk Kramden did when he was here?”
“Kramden took my statement as a witness. Now they want to question me as a suspect.”
Madeleine appeared nonplussed.
“A suspect?” cried Kyle. “Are they completely out of their fucking minds?”
“That’s not all,” said Gurney. “One or more law-enforcement agencies may want to question me about Robby Meese’s death, since I was in Kim’s apartment last evening. So I think it would be best if I weren’t here. Homicide interviews can go on for a long time, and I have an appointment tonight I wouldn’t want to miss.”